anyone know a way to fake a metal flake paint job in photoshop. I've played with adding noise in different ways, but I havent found a way to make it look right. has anyone been able to duplicate metal flake paint?
nope. tried that. need a way to fake it, not clone real metal flake. Cloning from another photo would mean using the contours, highlights shodows from the other car. I need a way to just overlay the color and "flakiness" onto the contours of the new car. anyone? hmmmm.... sounds like I need to perfect this and make a "Metal Flake" filter for photoshop with sliders for color, size and density of the flake and color, candy and depth of the paint. hmmmmm......
Make your Selection, add noise. That is the way to get the "flake" to appear correctly. Then work on a combination of Saturation, Color Balance, Brightness and Contrast to get it to the correct color - since noise adds bits of different colors together. This one didn't turn out great (some pictures work better than others) but it should give you an idea.
Empire & Gotgas have got it. Plus you can ad "reflections" and "Shimmer" the help it stand out. Here is one of my attemps at it.
Mon Frère Norwell said he spent a bunch of time and had a step by step all typed out, then he hit the wrong ****on and zapped it. Maybe someday he'll have time to re-do it. It's good that he doesn't have the time, Right Jeff! I've duplicated the body layer twice, Add noise to one, the other I made it contrasty to the point where its black and white, "magic wand" the dark and delete it. Blur that layer slightly and use "Dissolve" on that layer. Takes some practice and judgement on what settings. It looks more realistic it you also add a Black dissolved layer under the light one with the opacity turned way down. I also added some highlights like ZUMO said.
adding noise and deciding if it should be monochrome, uniform, or gaussian, or combination can really change the appearance of the "flake" - even give it a luminescent pearl if you're willing to work with multiple layers.
the noise filter works OK, but, it always tends to look flat. ALso, the problem with dissolve, is it dissolves EVERYTHING in that layer, whereas in a photgraph there are many areas of a flake that would appear to be flat paint. That's just the way it is on film. If it's dissolved, the whole thing looks like an even flake tone I use the airbrush The first thing you have to do is decide where the light is coming from. Then decide how a silver flake would react to that light source? Is it tinted? After you decide that, choose three or four different colors (white black and mids), and select the airbrush tool, about 4% pressure, hardness 50% set on dissolve mode. Then you spray your base, which is usually black, then your mids, which match the tint of the paint (if any), then the highs, usually a lightened version of that tint, then the topcoat which is usually a light grey or white. You can choose how much flake you want on certain areas, where it is most logically going to appear flaked in a photgraph- all the ridges, all the highlights, etc. You see much more flake on areas where the paint is light than dark, whic is why I selectively flake with the airbrush rather than a filter. This technique also gives you a much thicker, deeper looking flake, definitely more three dimensional. My 2 cents
try this great tutorial at http://www.base24.com/tutorial/Candyapple1.html detailed and flexible - interesting effects can be had ..
here is a little tinkering I've been doing recently..... nothing fancy, just "add noise". hmmmm... looks like a new project
I did this Photoshopping about a year ago on my '62 Chrysler NewYorker wagon; Car as it is currently, although Photoshop-lowered; Some paint ideas I played around with at the time: My favorite, black MetalMlake body and red MF roof; Black/Black MetalFlake; Red/Red MetalFlake; Blue/Red MetalFlake, mainly just a colortest;
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